Damascus steel ledeburite class

Discovered that some of blades Damascus steel has an unusual nature of origin of the excess cementite, which different from the redundant phases of secondary cementite, cementite of ledeburite and primary cementite in iron-carbon alloys. It is revealed that the morphological features of separate particles of cementite in Damascus steels lies in the abnormal size of excess carbides having the shape of irregular prisms. Considered three hypotheses for the formation of excess cementite in the form of faceted prismatic of excess carbides. The first hypothesis is based on thermal fission of cementite of a few isolated grains. The second hypothesis is based on the process of fragmentation cementite during deformation to the separate the pieces. The third hypothesis is based on the transformation of metastable cementite in the stable of angular eutectic carbide. It is shown that the angular carbides are formed within the original metastable colony ledeburite, so they are called "eutectic carbide". It is established that high-purity white cast iron is converted into of Damascus steel during isothermal soaking at the annealing. It was revealed that some of blades Damascus steel ledeburite class do not contain in its microstructure of crushed ledeburite. It is shown that the pattern of carbide heterogeneity of Damascus steel consists entirely of angular eutectic carbides. Believe that Damascus steel refers to non-heat-resistant steel of ledeburite class, which have similar structural characteristics with semi-heat-resistant die steel or heat-resistant high speed steel, differing from them only in the nature of excess carbide phase.